Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

My daughter, Autumn ,is in Hoonah visiting from Wasilla. It's the same town where Sarah Palin was mayor. It's up near Anchorage for those who may not be familiar with Alaska. She had mentioned that she wanted to get some pictures while she was here, so the other day we had a break in the weather and went out. We ventured down to Lumbago Way. It's an upaved alley of sorts that runs along the beach. Garteeni Creek is on the far side of the peninsula in the pictures. In the spring the Dolly Varden trout show up to feed on the salmon smolt that are working their way out to the saltwater. In late summer and fall there is a run of Humpback and Coho salmon. There may be Chums that run up there too, I can't remember. The creek runs right by the breakwater for the harbor and past the boat haulout area. Last year I watched a few folks go out on the flats on a minus tide and take a few buckets of clams or cockles out of there. I wish Iliked clams- I'd go dig some myself. In t...

I hope every one had a nice Christmas. We certainly did. As per usual, we ate too much, or at least I did. When I looked at the amount of food that was purchased prior to the holiday I didn't really believe that we could go through it all. Of course, once again, I was wrong. Thankfully I didn't eat it all myself. My sons Ben and Brian came for a visit, and my daughter Autumn and her husband Aaron were here. Then of course Jen and her tribe. Throw in a few friends and you have a pretty nice showing. On Christmas Eve we all descended on Jennifer's house like ants at a picnic. She has an annual shoebox dinner that she puts on. Fortunately we don't have to eat the shoes. Then the next day we're back again for brunch. For some reason she doesn't seem to get tired of company. She's the most sociable person I know. I'm really kind of glad she's that way. It gives all the guests a place to go when I get crabby, as I'm prone to do. All the kids seem to l...

Being an ignorant buffoon can be difficult at times. There are a few upsides though. If people realize you aren't the brightest bulb in the box, they have a tendency to not expect too much from you. Plus you can usually get some kind soul to help you out in your time of need. Such was the case today when I couldn't remember how to download my pictures onto a flash drive so I could come up to the library and do this blog. Fortunately, family friend and Stanford grad, or is it Stamford grad, well, whatever she is, Candy is really intelligent and she was kind enough to help me. I really appreciate the fact that she is so patient too. I know that I have a tendency to try even the most docile teacher who ever lived. I just don't pick up on things too quickly. Anyway, I got the help I needed and was successful in getting the pictures I wanted for this blog. Back on the tenth of this month we had an open house. It's been an annual event for awhile now, though last y...

Well, here I am again- up at the library, trying to do a blog post and read my email. I got a call from Gene, the guy who is supposed to be setting us up with Hughes Net so we can get internet service at home. I was expecting to be all squared away by now, but he called and said someone made off with his direction finder. He needs that to make sure the antenna is pointed at the satellite, so I guess I have to wait until he gets another one. Go figure. To make matters more interesting, I can't tell which picture I'm choosing for the blog right now- it just gives me a number, which I randomly chose, so obviously I got the picture from my book. Oh well. To add to the situation, I only have thirty minutes allotted for this computer before it automatically shuts off and I lose everything. Can you believe it? Actually I can- nothing really surprizes me. " What doctor? I have the only recorded case of malaria in Alaska? No, I'm not shocked at all" "What's tha...

Whooee! It's raining buckets outside tonight; blowing sideways, cold, black as pitch. Just a typical late November night in Southeast Alaska. As one gal from the farm used to say, " It's raining like pouring pee out of a boot." Well, I've never poured pee out of a boot before- but if I had to,I can imagine that it would be quite a downpour . Obviously this isn't a picture of anyone pouring anything out of anything else. Because I'm using the library computer and I'm not overly comfortable with it, I'm digging into the archives of my picture file for something to write about. I don't want too much time to elapse without posting something to the blog. I decided to post these pictues of Brian Bitz. He was diving off the airplane float last year when I took these. I think he was looking for some crabs- the yellow bag is to hold his catch. He didn't get anything on this particular day, but he mentioned that he's picked up King Crabs on occa...

My mind is a mysterious thing to me. Judging by the looks I get from some people, it's a mystery to them too. Out of the blue, some thought will appear and I haven't got the foggiest idea where it came from. Sometimes it will be triggered by something totally unrelated to the subject at hand. For instance, the other day I was walking back from the post office and I noticed this apple tree in Ernie Jack's yard. The apples reminded me of ornaments on a Christmas tree, and I was going to do a blog on it, although I hate talking about Christmas before Thanksgiving has even arrived. Then I started thinking about a pear tree that my neighbors up the street had back in Marion. I distinctly remembering being just a little guy, maybe three or four. It was summer and I was young enough that I was willing to wear a sunsuit without objection. I was barefooted and walked up into their yard. Pears had fallen on the ground and the honeybees were crawling all over them. I was scared of bei...

It snowed today for the first time this season. It didn't amount to anything, just a few flakes falling, not even enough to cover the ground, and then it was gone. I don't know why, but up the bay by Neka Mountain the ground is covered all the way to the beach. Maybe it was colder there than in town. Anyway, it probably won't be long now and we'll have to deal with the blasted stuff. Just in case, I climbed under the house and wrestled out a snow shovel. Since there wasn't any snow to take pictures of, and since I don't really want to think about winter yet, I thought I would display a few pictures from a little outing that I took with Jan and Jen and Kaylahni awhile back. We were going to go out to Freshwater Bay, but as Botts luck would have it, they were refurbishing the road, so we went to another spot. It was a beautiful day so we parked the car on the side of the road and ate a sandwich and sat in the sunshine and enjoyed each others company. It had the ad...